GAS Featured Artist: Dixie Denman Junius, by Sylvia Van Nooten

Dixie's career took her from Boston to Southern California, where in the early 90’s, she left her consulting practice to become a full-time artist. She studied paper-making at UCLA under Harriet Germain, who became a dear friend and mentor. She took further private instruction in Japanese paper-making with Yoshio Ikezaki.

Tight studio space has brought opportunities to explore working small, extending her art in new and exciting directions and employing an array of materials, tools and techniques: watercolors, inks, pastels, brushes and pens, bits and bobs, things and stuff. These days, her eclectic work spans asemic writing/art, painting, drawing, paper-making  mono printing, mixed media, paper cutting, and photo- glitching.

Dixie Denman Junius’ work caught my attention immediately as I was scrolling through a Facebook art page.  The delicacy of her lines and color, the perfect layering of dark and light tones—I stopped and studied her paintings.  Each work evokes a poem, asemic writing as a ‘wordless’ expression of her thoughts and ideas.  When seen together there is a profundity in the form and great self expression.  

~Sylvia Van Nooten 

The artist in her own words:

Though I still travel along many eccentric, eclectic, convoluted creative directions, these days my artmaking is increasingly influenced by and happily entwined with asemic writing. Last year was when I discovered that there was a name for the form I had been doing all along: Asemic writing and asemic art resonated so strongly, reinvigorating my art making completely. The light went on, bells ringing! Yes to all of this! 

As I am less enthralled and less apt with words, asemics has opened up new ways of expression. A path I was already on seemed to grow ever wider. I am now obsessed and addicted, and keep coming back to this form throughout my work. Asemic work can look like writing but it's not. Detached from language, the characters and patterns express ideas in ways that written words cannot. Intuitive, free; there is meaning and there are ideas but one must find them. 

Asemic Ryhthm

Asemic journaling is a routine for me, and often leads to a new direction in my work. Sometimes a journal page is just strong enough to stand on its own and be seen." Asemic Rhythm" came from a journal page I was writing and is rendered in brush and ink. "Sound and Rain" happened in the same fashion but was a less literal translation. I employed brush and ink for the first layers and then added writing in gold using a dip pen. 

Sound of Rain

Dream Upon Awakening

“Dream upon Waking" and "Note to Self" are asemic circles. I have created over 100 pieces in this form in the past year or so. And I shall keep going I think. The circle is perhaps my favorite shape and appears in much of what I make, including some Enso-inspired pieces. 

The asemic circles are meditations for me that allow me to indulge my fascination with revealing and concealing or obscuring and transforming an image. They often start as experiments with using certain colors together to see how they dance and what they have to say. The media and instruments vary; often brush and ink or watercolor to lay down a first layer and second or third. Sometimes oil pastels mixed with water media. The final meditative layer: usually pen and ink, perhaps metallic ink. The repetition is both soothing and hypnotic. The final piece is always surprising, as the layers underneath are changed, often amplified in contrast or color. 

Note to Self

Pillars and portals represent another meditative path in my art. I love the rectangle almost as much as the circle; rectangles give a certain structure that seems strong and contains the meditative ink or paint lines perfectly. This process of partially masking the original image transforms it. There is much wonder and delight when the piece works. When it doesn't, I've had a nice meditation. 

"Meditation: Dream Artifacts" is a gel plate monoprint with metallic gold 

and dark red ink layered on. 

Meditation:  Dream Artifacts

With "Portals: Past" I used a masking agent to define white spaces with inks creating the base for the metallic gold ink lines.

Portals:  Past